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Jim Henson
James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, artist, cartoonist, inventor, screenwriter, and filmmaker who achieved international fame as the creator of the Muppets. He was born in Greenville, Mississippi and raised in Leland, Mississippi and Hyattsville, Maryland. Henson began developing puppets while attending high school. He created Sam and Friends while he was a freshman at the University of Maryland, College Park, a five-minute sketch-comedy puppet show that appeared on television. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in home economics, after which he produced coffee advertisements and developed some experimental films. He founded Muppets, Inc. in 1958, which became the Jim Henson Company. Henson became famous in 1969 when he joined the children's educational television program Sesame Street''where he helped to develop characters for the series. He also appeared on the sketch comedy show ''Saturday Night Live. He produced The Muppet Show in 1976, after scrapping plans for a Broadway show. He won fame for his creations, particularly Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog, and Ernie, and he was involved with Sesame Street for over 20 years. During the later years of his life, he also founded the Jim Henson Foundation and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He won the Emmy Award twice for his involvement in The Storyteller and The Jim Henson Hour. Henson died of toxic shock syndrome on May 16, 1990 at age 53, twenty hours after experiencing a medical emergency; an unexpected event that was widely lamented in the media and entertainment industry. In the weeks following his death, he was celebrated with a wave of tributes. He was posthumously inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, and was selected to be one of the Disney Legends in 2011. Legacy The Jim Henson Company and the Jim Henson Foundation continued after his death, producing new series and specials. Jim Henson's Creature Shop, founded by Henson, also continues to build creatures for a large number of other films and series (e.g. the science-fiction production Farscape, the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the movie MirrorMask) and is considered one of the most advanced and well respected creators of film creatures. As of 2017, his eldest son Brian and eldest daughter Lisa are the co-chairs and co-CEOs of the company; his daughter Cheryl is the president of the foundation. Steve Whitmire, a veteran member of the Muppet puppeteering crew, assumed the roles of Kermit the Frog and Ernie, the most famous characters formerly played by Jim Henson. Whitmire also assumed the roles of Link Hogthrob, starting with the video game Muppet RaceMania, as well as The Muppet Newsman, starting in 2008, with Muppet.com viral online videos. However in 2017 Whitmire was fired from the Muppets Studio and as a result, Matt Vogel has taken over the role of Kermit. Muppeteer veteran Bill Barretta has taken over for Henson's fairly deeper voiced roles, such as the Swedish Chef, Mahna Mahna, Rowlf the Dog, and Dr. Teeth. Guy Smiley, in recent years, has been taken over by Eric Jacobson, and the role of Waldorf, in 1992, was assumed by Muppet performer veteran Dave Goelz. As of 2017, Ernie is now performed by puppeteer Peter Linz. On February 17, 2004, it was announced that the non-''Sesame Street''/''Fraggle Rock'' Muppets and the Bear in the Big Blue House properties had been sold by Henson's heirs to The Walt Disney Company (the Sesame Street characters are separately owned by Sesame Workshop, and the Fraggle Rock''characters are still owned by The Jim Henson Company) . However, as a result, Sesame Workshop also lost the rights to Kermit the Frog, and thus he would not appear on new material on ''Sesame Street for some time. However, Sesame Workshop has since obtained permission from Disney to use Kermit, allowing him to make an appearance on the premiere of the show's 40th season on November 10, 2009. In addition, Sesame Workshop has made many of Kermit's previous segments on the show available for viewing on their YouTube account. One of Henson's last projects was a show attraction in Walt Disney World and Disneyland featuring the Muppets, called Muppet*Vision 3D, which opened in 1991, shortly after his death. The Jim Henson Company retains the Creature Shop, as well as the rest of its film and television library including Fraggle Rock (one of the few Muppet-related properties still owned by The Jim Henson Company), Farscape, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. In 2010, it was announced that the first major biography of Henson, sanctioned by the family and the Jim Henson Legacy, was to be published. The biography by Brian Jay Jones was published on September 24, 2013, Henson's 77th birthday. On February 14, 2014, Henson's youngest son John died of a heart attack after playing in the snow with his daughter; he was 48 years old. Category:Cast & crew Category:Real-world articles Category:Pages needing citation